Stablecoin Security Guide: Identifying Native Assets and Cross-Chain Bridges Support

Recently, some users discovered that the USDT and USDC on the FTM blockchain are actually issued by Multichain, which has caused quite a stir. In the crypto assets field, asset security is crucial. Therefore, understanding the issuance status of various cryptocurrencies on different blockchains and their officially supported cross-chain bridges becomes particularly important. This article will explore how to determine whether a stablecoin on a certain blockchain is an officially issued native asset and how to identify the cross-chain bridge support behind it.

The situation of USDC

The FAQ section of the official USDC website clearly states that USDC is a native asset on 8 blockchains: Ethereum, Solana, Avalanche, Tron, Algorand, Stellar, Flow, and Hedera. USDC on other chains is a bridged asset.

It is worth noting that although USDC on Polygon has received official support from the issuer, allowing for direct deposit and withdrawal operations through its account, it is technically still bridged through the official Polygon bridge rather than natively issued. However, the issuer's willingness to provide support also indicates a certain level of acknowledgment of its security.

The situation of USDT

The transparency page on the USDT official website lists all the natively supported Blockchains. Interestingly, the "Omni" protocol mentioned there is the predecessor of the recently frequently mentioned BRC20, and USDT was originally issued on Bitcoin/Omni.

Cross-chain bridges support for non-native assets

For non-native assets, we can query platforms such as DeFillama. Taking USDC as an example, we can see the cross-chain bridge support for USDC on various blockchains under the stablecoin tag on that platform.

If you cannot find relevant information on DeFillama, you can search for it using a search engine or a Blockchain explorer. For example, FTMScan points out that the USDC on the FTM chain is supported by Multichain.

It is worth noting that most stablecoins on current Layer 2 networks (L2) are still not native assets. However, due to the special technical architecture of Layer 2 networks, these bridged assets are generally safer than those on Layer 1 networks (L1). You can briefly understand their risk situation through the L2BEAT platform.

This also explains why some users are dissatisfied with the development progress of certain layer two network teams.

Conclusion

In summary, to ensure asset security, it is recommended to hold native stablecoin assets on mainstream Blockchains as much as possible. Otherwise, you may face the situation of "not your private key, not your coin"; worse still, your coin may be issued by a less reliable third-party platform.